Our last day at Cottesloe
Beach couldn't have been more pleasant, after stormy weather over the weekend,
we woke to a beautiful winter sunny day without a cloud.
I had to have an early
morning run in my favourite Oz location before we finished our packing and then we went for a 2 mile
walk along Marine Parade above the beach, watching the large number of
surfers taking advantage of the great surf and decent weather on offer.
The
fact that sharks had been spotted off the coast recently didn't seem to be
putting them off. It would seem that a few were pulling "sickies"
today!
The weather continued so
spectacularly that we spent more unplanned time on the beach in the afternoon
before leaving Cottesloe and heading to Matilda Bay, the
restaurant alongside the Swan River where we had had a magnificent meal
with Aid and Ed 4 weeks ago on our 2nd evening in Western Australia. Once again the
restaurant delivered a superb last meal of our holiday, which was also a
celebration of Mary's birthday the previous day.
Our Qatar flight via
Doha left at 23.05 and we arrived back in London at 13.00 yesterday. It was our
first experience of Qatar and we were impressed, especially the Doha to London
flight on an A380, which carries over 500 passengers in quiet comfort. The service and
food were also fine and the transfer at Doha was straightforward and less hassle than Dubai.
So another Radcliffe
adventure in Oz has come to the end but it’s been superb all along, from the
moment we touched down in Perth over 4 weeks ago, then through the Kimberley
and Pilbara regions of Western Australia. It’s also been sociable because we spent
the first week with our friends Aid and Ed and whilst in Broome we met up with
other friends Gene & Julian several times.
Apart from Perth and
Broome, all the places we have visited have been for the first time and there
have been some real highlights, such as Horizontal falls, Geikie Gorge, Point
Samson, Cape Leveque and Karijini National Park. The latter
two required over two hundred kms on unsealed roads but our Mitsubishi
Pajero coped extremely well, as they are designed to do. In total, we drove
over 3,500km, but it never seemed excessive with the longest days being only
just over 400km.
The mixture of
accommodation has been amazing, varying from up-market hotels and resorts,
cabins on the beach and on a caravan site, basic motels to a tent. The weather
has been generally hot and sunny, with the best in Broome, Cape
Leveque and Point Samson, a tropical storm at Fitzroy Crossing and cold in
Karijini.
The principal memories
are the incredible landscapes, red rocks and sand, deserts, mountain ranges,
gorges, plains, Indian Ocean, blue sky, night sky, white sandy beaches (inc
Eighty Mile Beach!).
Thanks for reading the
blog and commenting or emailing me. If you have any other feedback I’d love to
receive it.
